A series of accusations of sexual abuse against minors has battered the
American priesthood, yet the National Federation of Priest's Councils,
the unofficial priests' union, has failed to assume responsibility. Never
hesitant about offering advice to both church and state on national and
international problems, the federation is silent on the scandal. This
seeming indifference is typical of the head-in-the-sand reaction of most
priests to the pedophile problem.

The priesthood may be the only profession in this country that makes
no attempt to police itself against unprofessional behavior. Moreover,
when a sexual abuse case arises, priests usually distance themselves from
it. They claim it's the bishop's problem, maybe, but not theirs. In Chicago,
where Joseph Cardinal Bernardin is attempting major reforms and re-examing
decades of accusations, there is little enthusiasm among priests for what
he has done and much sullen mumbling and complaint.

If Catholic clerics feel that charges of pedophilia have created an open
season on them, they have only themselves to blame. By their own inaction
and indifference they have created an open season on children for the
few sexual predators among them.

Even now the typical priestly reactions to a pedophile charge are denying
that the sexual abuse occurred, protecting the accused priest at whatever
cost, covering up and blaming the victim and the media. He was cleared
by the police, they often claim, ignoring the well-known truth that in
many law enforcement jurisdictions there is a powerful, unwritten rule
against arresting or indicting a priest. Or they will assure you that
it was the boy's father who molested him or that the boy's mother brought
the charges because the priest had rebuffed her sexual advances.

Personnel boards have had no hesitation in reassigning, after a few months
of treatment, clerics who have faced such accusations -- sometimes to
the role of pastor.

Bishop Raymond Goedert, former Vicar for the Clergy in the Archdiocese
of Chicago, compared the scandal to the Clarence Thomas hearings, saying
that it all depends on who you believe -- the priest or the alleged victim.

And his successor as vicar, the Rev. Patrick O'Malley, a past president
of the priests' federation, assured a TV audience that members of a parish
have the same sympathetic understanding for priests with sexual abuse
problems that they do for alcoholic priests. "Slayers of the Soul,"
a book about pedophilia edited by a priest, asserts that psychologists
think sexual abuse, like alcoholism, can be controlled through therapy
groups. It does not occur to these "experts" that alcoholics
are dangerous only to themselves, their families and the people they smash
with their cars, but each pedophile is a threat to the future lives of
hundreds of children.

As far as I am aware, no priest has ever turned another in for abusing
a child or even testified against such a man. No diocesan senate of priests
has spoken out publicly against the harm done by the predators of children
to the church and to the priesthood. The priests' senate in my own archdiocese
showed concern only for accused priests and for a hope that the Cardinal
might keep me from writing more on the problem (he did not try). Concern
for victims, past and future, was nonexistent.

Caught up in denial and defense mechanisms, priests seem unable to imagine
what it must be like to be a victim or a member of a victim's family --
"a terror," in Cardinal Bernardin's words, that "will haunt
them for the rest of their lives." Rarely have I heard that priests
agree with the Cardinal that "we must protect children from them
just as we protect women from rapists."

Some priests argue that pedophilia and related forms of sexual abuse are
no worse in the priesthood than in any other profession. This shows a
total misunderstanding of the priest's role in the life of the Catholic
laity. To be defiled sexually by a priest is far worse than by anyone
except a parent.

All professions rally to support their own when they are under attack.
But the priesthood is a special profession. Its failure to police itself
is a special disgrace.